A Prayer
by Aphiria
Summary: A hunter turns to the most unlikely person for help.


Somewhere between the ambulance and being drugged to the point of unconsciousness by the paramedic Dean starts to pray. The words tumble out of his mouth before he knows what he is doing. He's in so much pain and it has nothing to do with his leg. He's lost so much already. Now he might have lost Bobby, he thinks he's loosing Sam, and he's lost Cas. He doesn't have anywhere to bury this pain. He's full up of these steel doors and locked boxes. He knew eventually something was going to give. Speeding off to a hospital full of Leviathans with a broken leg and no way to kill them seems like as good as time as any to just let everything go. So when he starts to pray he doesn't try to bite his tongue. He doesn't even care if he's making sense or if the EMTs are listening.

"God? It's me. It's been a long time… and I'm sorry."

He feels tears sting his eyes and he blinks them away not caring that more fall down his face than stay where ever duct tears come from.

"I'm sorry about Cas."

He looks over to the medic lifting Sam's eyelids open, flashing a light rapidly into the too dull brown, and muttering into that stupid shoulder-talkie. He feels the panic in his chest getting lighter when it should be skyrocketing. He remembered the warm liquid being pumped into him by the IQ in his forearm. He tries to fight to hold onto some sense, something solid to hang onto and to ground him. He keeps praying because at least it's something.

"He's just a kid. He needed his dad and you weren't there. He needed a family and they were tearing themselves apart. He was just trying to fix everything you left to rot."

The drugs are creeping into him, making him feel lighter, he fights it. He digs his fingers into the flesh of his thigh on his broken leg.

"I know that I've always been selfish when it comes to Cas. I know that I ask too much of him and I never say thank you. I'm an unappreciated selfish douchebag. But you knew that already didn't you? You probably already know what I'm going to ask."

He swallows thickly against a tongue that is too heavy.

"I need Cas back. I-I can't do this without him. He's my best friend and I love him. I don't care if he doesn't get any of my references or that he doesn't understand personal space. I just, I just _need_ him. You have to forgive him. You have to give him, give him back to me."

He realizes that he's slipping because the tears are flowing strong enough to soak through the neck of his shirt. The back of the ambulance is getting fuzzy. He can barely make out someone muttering. He thinks that maybe he's not speaking out loud anymore. His voice has always sounded softer in his head, calmer.

"I need Sam to be okay. I won't live without him. You know I can't. I need my baby brother and I need Bobby too. I've lost too many people I care about already. I won't survive if you take them all away."

He remembers pieces of his life in shocking clarity. Sam going to Stanford and living with Jess. He was so happy back then. Cas doing his whole warrior thing. He was strong and sure even if he was doing it all for the wrong reasons. Bobby's mutters of "idjit" when he does something unbelievably stupid. The year he spent in hell they all survived without him, and Cas got along just fine without him post apocalypse. But…

"But they can make it without me. They've done it before. So here's my offer. You give them another chance. You bring them back all patched up and you get me. Throw me back into the pit, send me to purgatory, kick me out of the universe for all I care. Just save them. I know it's not much of an offer but it's all I got. One selfish, stubborn, hunter with too much emotional baggage for an angel that tried to save his family, an old man that helped save more lives than I can count, and a kid that stopped the apocalypse. What do ya say big man? We got a deal?"

Dean waits but nothing really comes except the pain killers. He feels warm and light and wrong. He wants to fight but can't. He wants to open his eyes and look over at Sammy, beg the EMT for some kind of information but he can't. All he can do is let it all go…


End file.
